US5646954A - Maintenance strategy control system and monitoring method for gas discharge lasers - Google Patents

Maintenance strategy control system and monitoring method for gas discharge lasers Download PDF

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Publication number
US5646954A
US5646954A US08/599,744 US59974496A US5646954A US 5646954 A US5646954 A US 5646954A US 59974496 A US59974496 A US 59974496A US 5646954 A US5646954 A US 5646954A
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laser
pulse
sub
laser system
interval
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Palash P. Das
Gary R. Stephenson
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Cymer LLC
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Cymer Inc
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Priority to US08/599,744 priority Critical patent/US5646954A/en
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Assigned to SILICON VALLEY BANK reassignment SILICON VALLEY BANK SECURITY INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: CYMERLASER TECHNOLOGIES
Assigned to CYMER, INC. reassignment CYMER, INC. ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: CYMER LASER TECHNOLOGIES
Priority to DE69707323T priority patent/DE69707323T2/de
Priority to EP97300339A priority patent/EP0789431B1/de
Priority to CA002196130A priority patent/CA2196130A1/en
Priority to JP03836497A priority patent/JP3226473B2/ja
Priority to KR1019970004090A priority patent/KR100246725B1/ko
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    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
    • H01S—DEVICES USING THE PROCESS OF LIGHT AMPLIFICATION BY STIMULATED EMISSION OF RADIATION [LASER] TO AMPLIFY OR GENERATE LIGHT; DEVICES USING STIMULATED EMISSION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION IN WAVE RANGES OTHER THAN OPTICAL
    • H01S3/00—Lasers, i.e. devices using stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared, visible or ultraviolet wave range
    • H01S3/02—Constructional details
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
    • H01S—DEVICES USING THE PROCESS OF LIGHT AMPLIFICATION BY STIMULATED EMISSION OF RADIATION [LASER] TO AMPLIFY OR GENERATE LIGHT; DEVICES USING STIMULATED EMISSION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION IN WAVE RANGES OTHER THAN OPTICAL
    • H01S3/00—Lasers, i.e. devices using stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared, visible or ultraviolet wave range
    • H01S3/14—Lasers, i.e. devices using stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared, visible or ultraviolet wave range characterised by the material used as the active medium
    • H01S3/22—Gases
    • H01S3/223—Gases the active gas being polyatomic, i.e. containing two or more atoms
    • H01S3/225—Gases the active gas being polyatomic, i.e. containing two or more atoms comprising an excimer or exciplex
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
    • H01S—DEVICES USING THE PROCESS OF LIGHT AMPLIFICATION BY STIMULATED EMISSION OF RADIATION [LASER] TO AMPLIFY OR GENERATE LIGHT; DEVICES USING STIMULATED EMISSION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION IN WAVE RANGES OTHER THAN OPTICAL
    • H01S3/00—Lasers, i.e. devices using stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared, visible or ultraviolet wave range
    • H01S3/10—Controlling the intensity, frequency, phase, polarisation or direction of the emitted radiation, e.g. switching, gating, modulating or demodulating

Definitions

  • the present invention is related to gas discharge lasers, and particularly to a control system for predicting the time remaining until maintenance is required on various laser subsystems.
  • Pulsed laser applications such as materials processing, require a known amount of laser energy incident upon the material being processing. In most of these applications, process control is achieved by controlling the energy incident upon the surface of the material. Therefore, for such industrial applications, laser systems utilize all energy detector which measures the energy of each laser pulse. This energy information is communicated to the system user by the laser-based micro-controller, wherein the user can modify operating conditions to maintain constant laser energy or change the laser's energy to a new value.
  • gas discharge type lasers have to be maintained at specified intervals during use in a production environment, and the various subsystems must be refurbished due to contamination resulting from the various laser gasses reacting with the electrodes and chamber materials.
  • This type of contamination generally in the form of a metal fluoride dust in excimer laser systems, causes deterioration in the beam profile and bandwidth increases as a result of deposition and/or etching of the laser's windows. Erosion of the lasers electrodes during operation as a result of arcing and fluorine passivation in turn causes degradation of the laser's bandwidth, degradation of pulse-to-pulse energy stability, inconsistent burst mode behavior and degradation in beam profile.
  • sub-components such as the thyratron switch and the line narrowing modules likewise degrade in performance, resulting in less-than-expected energy output from the laser and an overall loss of process control.
  • the laser controller will terminate laser operation, thereby resulting in costly down-time for the user.
  • the present invention is made in response to the above-referenced need for a predictive diagnostic which will allow users to schedule in advance the required maintenance on the laser's operation-limited sub-components, thereby preventing the degradation in laser output and the possible unscheduled downtime associated with sub-component failure.
  • the present invention is particularly suitable for use in a manufacturing environment, but is equally well suited to other industrial and research environments which require the laser system to operate reliably and within critically defined parameters.
  • a microprocessor based laser control system such as that provided in the excimer laser system disclosed in the '215 patent, retains in its non-volatile memory a limit number or threshold pulse number for each pulse-limited sub-component used in the laser system.
  • This limit number is based upon each sub-component's requirement for maintenance after a specified number of pulses is fired by the laser, with each sub-component having its own unique pulse-limit value.
  • a pulse counter which is used by the laser system for controlling other subsystems, such as a halogen injection system like that disclosed in the '215 patent, maintains a real-time count of the number of laser pulses fired by the system during operation.
  • a sub-program in accordance with the present invention, operates in conjunction with the control system diagnostics to compute a real-time difference between the user defined pulse-limit value and the current pulse count.
  • the subprogram determines an average pulse repetition rate over a user-specified time period, and uses this average value to calculate an accurate estimate, based upon the laser's current operation, of the time remaining before required maintenance (TBM) and/or end of the usable life of a sub-component, by dividing the real-time differences between the pulse-limit value and the pulse count by the computed average pulse rate value.
  • TBM time remaining before required maintenance
  • This predicted time value in hours or other specified time reference, is presented to the user upon user inquiry via the diagnostics, and is updated at either a fixed or a user-defined interval.
  • an alert can be issued of the impending end-of-life of the sub-components, or an automated signal can be generated to shut-down the laser system.
  • FIG. 1 depicts a flow chart schematically illustrating how the control system estimates the time remaining until TBM and/or the end of usable life for a particular laser sub-component.
  • FIG. 2 depicts a flowchart schematically illustrating how the alternative embodiment, utilizing a rolling average of laser pulses fired over a sample interval, SampInt, estimates the time remaining until TBM and/or end of usable life for a particular laser sub-component.
  • a micro processor-based implementation of a predictive maintenance control system is described in terms of a gas discharge laser, and particularly an excimer laser.
  • the predictive maintenance control system is equally adaptable to other pulsed laser systems having pulse limited sub-components, as well as other types of laser systems whose output can be converted to a time referenced and that incorporate sub-components having a specified TBM and/or end of useful life governed by the laser's output.
  • FIG. 1 The specifics of the predictive maintenance control system are shown in the flow chart shown in FIG. 1.
  • the following paragraph are numbered to correspond to numbered steps in FIG. 1.
  • the paragraph numbered "3" below refers to the step numbered as "3" in FIG. 1.
  • the numbers in FIG. 1 are to the left of the designated steps in the flowchart.
  • Maintenance prediction sub-program START initiates the diagnostic sub-program, allowing the user to predict and schedule required maintenance for laser system sub-components which have a specified operating life based upon the number of pulses fired by the laser.
  • These components for an excimer based system include the laser gas, chamber, high voltage power supply, metal fluoride filter, front and rear windows, commutator, compression head, front and rear optics, wave control meter and beam splitter.
  • the front and rear window components may have a useful life of 500 million pulse life before service is required, while the commutator may have a 3000 million pulse life.
  • This value is stored as a configurable in units of hours, in the control system's memory, and acts as a timer for the laser as it operates at a particular facility;
  • the defined variables are initialized. Each of the variables is linked in the sense that initializing one variable will affect, and therefore require initialization of the other variables.
  • the time period for MaintInt is set, based upon the user's operational requirements, which is generally an established maintenance interval, such as two weeks (336 hours), specific to the user's manufacturing operation.
  • LaserTimeOn can be initialized to zero.
  • AveRepRt is initially set equal to the maximum pulse repetition rate for the laser system, RepRtMax, such as 1000 Hz.
  • the Configurable RepRtMax is used for initialization when a viable AveRepRt cannot be computed.
  • TotalShtNM is set to the value indicated by the pulse counter, TotalSht, which may be some value other than zero due to laser system testing at the manufacturer prior to shipment or pre-production operation.
  • Dummy integer variable NM used by the sub-program to determine when MaintInt is reached, as later explained, is set to an arbitrary integer, such as 1.
  • Time-to-Maintenance, expressed in hours is, therefore, initially calculated as follows: ##EQU1## this can be more easily expressed as: ##EQU2## where % is optionally set by the user to provide a lead time buffer before the components end of life is reached, such as 110%, to allow the control system to warn the user to prepare to service the component prior to the true TBM.
  • LaserTimeOn is down-loaded from the control system memory. Diagnostic information, including the most recent TBM estimate, is updated at a user-specified interval, either hourly or after a specified fraction of an hour, and communicated to the user via a Serial Interface.
  • the sub-routine CHECK is performed, as shown schematically in FIG. 2, where the program checks the value of INIT against the defined integer variable NM.
  • INT is defined as the ratio of the time the laser is in a powered state (LaserTimeOn) over the user-defined maintenance interval period (MaintInt).
  • NM designated as a "1," and MaintInt specified as 336 hours
  • the inquiry 320 ⁇ (1) (336), or NM ⁇ 1 i.e., ratio of LaserTimeOn/MaintInt ⁇ , NM
  • INT is set at zero, wherein the program returns to step 4, and waits the user-defined interval to again recalculate LaserTimeOn.
  • LaserTimeOn was read as 365 hours, the relation NM ⁇ , 1 is true and INT would be set at 1.
  • the program proceeds to calculate AveRepRt as described in step 6.
  • the average pulse repetition rate of the laser over the interval, AveRepRt is calculated by taking the total number of pulses fired by the laser during the specified time interval divided by the interval period.
  • the dock for measuring MaintInt will not advance when the laser is in a power-off state.
  • the clock will continue to advance from its stopped position whenever the laser is in the LaserOn state. This calculation is based upon the following algorithm. ##EQU3## where the laser's running pulse counter will indicate TotalShtNM by the following relationship:
  • TBM for the component is calculated as described in step 3; however the value AveRepRt is substituted for RepRtMax, as follows: ##EQU4## TBM for a given MaintInt is, therefore, based upon the AveRepRt of the preceding MaintInt. This result is reported to the user via the serial interface and laser system diagnostics, as provided in step 4.
  • Table 1 provides an exemplary listing of subsystem components for an excimer laser system for which TBM, as provided herein, is reported. Each item listed is identified by its configuration name, with the associated response string indicating the control system's response when a query via the serial interface, is issued by the user.
  • TBM response provides the user a predictive estimate of the time remaining before the respective sub-component will exceed its life limit, not its maintenance limit.
  • the lifetime limit is signaled when the actual sub-component pulse count exceeds the life-pulse limit threshold for that sub-component. Because TBM is based upon the average pulse repetition rate of the laser system, it can be very different from actual time remaining if a large change is made to the programed repetition rate without initializing the defined variables. As previously discussed, it is for this reason that the variables are linked.
  • the subsystem GasShots is provided in Table 1.
  • the laser's gas is also limited by an actual time threshold, referred to as the static gas life.
  • This time threshold can be set by a first gas Configurable (i.e., Static Lf), with the time since the last gas refill reported as a second gas Configurable (i.e., Static Tm).
  • the time maintenance threshold for the gas can, for example, then be set by the user as a time at which Static Tm ⁇ 0.90 Static Lf, or some other percentage of StaticLf, and the life threshold for the sub-component be expressed as the point at which StaticTm>StaticLf.
  • the TBM for gas life prior to reaching the above-referenced threshold limits, would be reported in step 7 as the lesser of: ##EQU5##
  • control system can be configured to automatically transition from a state in which the laser can be fired to a standby state, or it can be configured to continue to operate while providing repeated alert messages to the user that the output characteristics of the laser may have degraded and the subsystem failure is imminent.
  • steps 1 to 4 are performed by the laser's control system as previously described; however, the AveRepRt is computed as a rolling average of laser pulses over a sample interval, SampInt (i.e. 6 minutes or 0.1 hours).
  • SampInt i.e. 6 minutes or 0.1 hours.
  • step 5 is omitted, with AveRepRt being determined directly after LaserTimeOn is downloaded from the control system memory in step 4.
  • the average pulse repetition rate in this embodiment is determined as follows: ##EQU6## where: ⁇ Shots Per Sec is the repetition rate in pulses per second during a previous SampInt;
  • 1/N is the weighting factor, based upon the designated sample interval, assigned to ⁇ Shots Per Sec, and is computed in each sample interval, SampInt.
  • AveRepRt is itself an averaged value which is computed each SampInt period, which in the aforementioned example was specified as 6 min. For example, if the maintenance interval, MaintInt, is specified at 24 hours, and the sample interval, SampInt, is specified as 0.1 hour (6 min) as previously described; and AveRepRt is equal to RepRtMax (1000 pulses/sec), with the pulses per second in the previous SampInt, ⁇ set at 100 then: ##EQU8## 8.
  • the estimated TBM is calculated for each sub-component based upon the current AveRepRt for the laser system, by taking the difference between a user-specified percentage or LifeTimeCt (i.e., 110%) for the sub-component and of LifeCounter. This difference is divided by AveRepRt and converted to a user-friendly time frame, such as hours, as follows: ##EQU9##

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  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Electromagnetism (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Plasma & Fusion (AREA)
  • Optics & Photonics (AREA)
  • Lasers (AREA)
US08/599,744 1996-02-12 1996-02-12 Maintenance strategy control system and monitoring method for gas discharge lasers Expired - Lifetime US5646954A (en)

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Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US08/599,744 US5646954A (en) 1996-02-12 1996-02-12 Maintenance strategy control system and monitoring method for gas discharge lasers
EP97300339A EP0789431B1 (de) 1996-02-12 1997-01-20 Wartungsstrategie-Steuerungssystem für Gasentladungslaser
DE69707323T DE69707323T2 (de) 1996-02-12 1997-01-20 Wartungsstrategie-Steuerungssystem für Gasentladungslaser
CA002196130A CA2196130A1 (en) 1996-02-12 1997-01-28 Maintenance strategy control system for gas discharge lasers
JP03836497A JP3226473B2 (ja) 1996-02-12 1997-02-06 部品の耐用期間の終焉を予測可能なレーザーシステム及びその予測方法
KR1019970004090A KR100246725B1 (ko) 1996-02-12 1997-02-12 가스 방전 레이저용 보수 전략 제어 시스템

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EP (1) EP0789431B1 (de)
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DE69707323T2 (de) 2002-05-02
EP0789431A3 (de) 1998-05-20
EP0789431B1 (de) 2001-10-17
DE69707323D1 (de) 2001-11-22
KR100246725B1 (ko) 2000-03-15
KR970063846A (ko) 1997-09-12
CA2196130A1 (en) 1997-08-13
EP0789431A2 (de) 1997-08-13
JP3226473B2 (ja) 2001-11-05
JPH09223833A (ja) 1997-08-26

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